From reading other threads (unfortunately, threads that were older than 60 days, so, because of some “unusual” site rule blocking certain people from posting to threads over 60 days old, I couldn’t post there, thus requiring me to start my own thread, just to get an answer to what should be a simple question), I know that PowerDVD 8 (supposedly) has the built-in ability to play multi-channel DVD Audio discs. The problem is, for whatever reason, it is not doing so. I know that my sound card, a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi, has the ability, and based on what I’ve read, PowerDVD 8 does as well, but why isn’t it playing them? I have one multi-channel DVD Audio disc in particular, The Beatles Love, for which the disc is in Dolby Surround, as well as DTS, which I wish to have a friend listen to, in its multi-channel configuration, but how am I supposed to do that when, the only way PowerDVD 8 seems to want to play it is in traditional stereo? Before anyone says to make sure I have the DVD Audio disc in my drive, and not the standard Audio CD disc, that’s not part of the problem, for I did, in fact, have the correct disc in the drive. So, can anyone help me with whatever seems to be the problem? Does anyone out there know why PowerDVD 8 isn’t properly playing my multi-channel DVD Audio discs, and if so, what I can do to get the program to play them correctly? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
A couple of possibilities..and somebody please correct me if I'm wrong. First, can you play anything in surround sound on your Power DVD software? I know that my PowerDVD version (version 6.0) and/or my Creative Audigy 2 card occasionally reverts back to stereo audio mode, from the surround settings I had set it/them on. When one of them does, I have to go to the speaker configurations and change it. Another possibility: I think that PowerDVD canceled DVD-Audio support on some DVD-Audio titles. I know that when I put a DVD-Audio disc in my disc drive, PowerDVD tries to go online to verify if the disc is allowed to play in high resolution (DVD-Audio). It gives a message that says "CPPM must be activated before playing CPPM-protected content. Please connect to the Internet and press OK when ready." But when I click on OK it never does anything, so I click on CANCEL. Sometimes at that point it goes ahead and plays the disc in DVD-Audio mode, but sometimes it says it can't play CPPM-protected content. In those cases I have to use the DVD-Audio player software that came with the Audigy drive to play the disc. However, in the case of Beatles Love, PowerDVD played it fine in DVD-Audio mode (after I clicked on cancel as noted above), so maybe you should check the speaker settings first. Good luck.
To habpepper: Thank you for your suggestions, and as it turned out, in a matter of speaking, it was what you described in your first suggestion that had caused the problem. The problem is, PowerDVD had nothing to do with things going back to a 2/2.1 channel set-up, from the 5.1/7.1 channel set-up it was supposed to be at. For whatever reason, which is completely unknown to me (at least at this point in time), it was Windows Vista, itself, which reverted back to the 2/2.1 channel set-up. All it took to correct the problem was to go to Control Panel --> Sound --> Playback (tab), and click on the 'Configure' button. That's where I discovered that my set-up had reverted back to the default 2/2.1 channel set-up. So, for anyone else who has this, or a similar, speaker problem, before anything else, my first suggestion would be to try what I mentioned above, as your speaker set-up may have also been changed without you knowing.
